E-readers helping people with low vision

Electronic gizmos such as the NOOK and iPad make it easier for many people to read.

Tamara Browning

New technology such as smartphones and tablet computers can offer the estimated 21 million people in the United States who have low vision a chance at improved sight, vision experts say.

People with low vision have extremely limited sight that interferes with daily activities. Those vision losses can’t be corrected with eyeglasses, contact lenses, medication or surgery, according to www.visionaware.org.

But technological devices can improve the useful vision of low-vision patients by enlarging print and images, said Dr. Robert J. Blumthal, an optometrist working with low-vision patients at The Prairie Eye Center in Springfield, Ill.

“In the past, we used to get these monstrous closed-circuit TV devices. They’re called ‘CCTVs,’ which were a screen and a magnifier, and you’d slide it back and forth and it would make images huge,” Blumthal said.

“Now with the Kindle and the NOOK (electronic readers) and iPad (tablet computer), you can make the prints as big as you want, and they don’t have to scroll side to side anymore. It just scrolls downward. It adjusts for the print in the sentence automatically.”

Joan Arthur is a patient of Blumthal’s who has had macular degeneration — the progressive deterioration of the macula area in the retina — for 13 years. She uses the CCTV to read. However, she said Blumthal suggested she try something new, such as a Kindle.

“I do want to look into it. Anything would help,” said Arthur, 79.

New technology has been a “godsend” for low-vision patients, Blumthal said.

“Many of them that I’ve been trying to convince them to spend $2,000 to $3,000 on a CCTV, now I say, ‘You know. You can get a Kindle for $100,’” said Blumthal.

“There’s lots and lots and lots and lots of people out there that have been listening to talking books for a long time,” Blumthal said. “Those all come through the Library of Congress, and it’s a matter of mailing them back and forth, and if your machine goes down, you’ve got to wait for another one to come.”

Blumthal thinks reading aids such as large-print books will become a thing of the past.

“Mainly because you have devices that for a little over than a year’s subscription for one magazine, you can now access any magazine, any journal and any book,” Blumthal said.

Technology driving reading

People who have low vision can be on the cusp of a phenomenon that can improve how they see.

Wireless subscriber connections to devices such as mobile phones, smartphones and tablets now outnumber people living in the United States and its territories of Puerto Rico, Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands — 322.9 million connections compared to 315.5 million people, according to a survey released in October by the trade group CTIA-The Wireless Association.

Among the many aids available to help people with low vision (such as magnifiers, reading glasses and CCTVs), the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved an implantable miniature camera for implantation in the eyes of patients with macular degeneration.

Macular degeneration can be a cause of low vision. Other causes include congenital, genetic diseases such as retinitis pigmentosa (causes progressive degeneration of the retina, the light-sensing nerve tissue in the back of the eye) and glaucoma (a group of eye diseases that damage the optic nerve, which connects the eye to the brain), Blumthal said.

“With macular degeneration, they need more light in order to see by, so the NOOK Color and the NOOK Tablet, because they are backlit and they can adjust the lighting on it, they can make it so the words are bright enough for them to read, and they can also increase the font size so they can read,” Cahill said.

“That’s the same with all of our units. We can increase the font size to make it larger, but the backlight really has been helpful for those that their retinas don’t register the light coming in as well.”

The NOOK Color is $199, and the NOOK Tablet is $249.

“We also have a NOOK Simple Touch, which you can adjust the font size, but you can’t change the background color. That’s only $99,” Cahill said.

Technology easing life

Blumthal called the ability to expand prints and images with the fingertips on the iPhone, the iPad and the iPod portable digital media player an amazing feature.

“In the past, you used to have to do lots of click, click, clicks to get something magnified, and it wouldn’t magnify,” Blumthal said.

“Windows has a program that it magnifies but you have to find where it’s at. It’s in the accessories. You have to locate it, then you have to start clicking on how big you want to make the print.”

Eye professionals have been able to take what’s available through technology and use it for patients to make their lives better, Blumthal said.

“That’s what really the bottom line is, is making life easier and better — a better world for them so that things are easier to do,” Blumthal said.

“We can’t restore their vision, but we can make it easier to do things and make life less complicated. If you make it less complicated, you make it less stressful. If you make it less stressful, you have a happy patient, and that’s the bottom line to me.”